Census figures released in March showed non-Hispanic whites make up 47 percent of California's population -- the first time whites were not in the majority since the census began to keep accurate numbers. Hispanics account for 32 percent, Asians 11 percent and blacks 7 percent.

''You have the fact that you have no ethnic majority now, so if you have no majority, what's minority?'' asked Frederick R. Lynch, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College. ''The classification machinery is pretty antique.''

The literal meaning of minority is less than 50 percent. To many people, however, it implies underprivileged or disadvantaged. Others see minority as a neutral term for any person of color.

The San Diego City Council addressed the issue last month by voting to strike the word ''minority'' from official use.

Deputy Mayor George Stevens, a longtime civil rights activist, said he brought the resolution forward after a conversation with a high school senior convinced him that less is expected of students referred to as minorities. He said he first proposed the measure two years ago.

The word minority ''referred to us as being different, as being less than,'' Stevens said. ''I'm not less than anybody. I haven't used the word in a very long time.''

Not everyone is ready to abandon the term.

''I think passing a resolution to say that we can't use that word, I think it's ridiculous, personally,'' said Scott Gunderson Rosa, director of communications in the Washington headquarters of the League of United Latin American Citizens. ''I was a minority and that helped me get scholarships to college, and there are a lot of other positive uses for the word.''

Lynch said the term gained currency during the civil rights and affirmative action battles of the 1960s and is therefore associated with the experiences of the baby boom generation.

In California, many young people say they never use the term.

''It hasn't been necessarily useful,'' said Marvin Hencey, a 28-year-old junior at California State University, Los Angeles, who is white. ''You have Asian people, and then you have Taiwanese and Chinese. You can't lump everything together because there are too many of each.''

Sherry Flores grew up in East Los Angeles, the daughter of Mexican immigrants who scraped by in factory jobs and struggled to learn English. The 21-year-old sophomore at Cal State Los Angeles sees the term minority as outdated.

''I wouldn't say I'm a minority and I'm oppressed or something,'' Flores said. ''I'm a Latino, that's about it. I usually just consider myself human.''

But social scientists say the term is unlikely to be discarded anytime soon. While California -- along with New Mexico, Hawaii and the District of Columbia -- has no majority group, the country as a whole is still predominantly white.

Moreover, even in places with no majority population, whites still occupy most positions of power. Some worry that eliminating the word minority could obscure that fact.

''There's only one black and one Latino member on the San Diego City Council. Ninety-eight percent of economic power in the city of San Diego is in white hands,'' said Jane Rhodes, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California at San Diego. ''It totally obscures the economic reality.''

But experts also say much of Americans' vocabulary for race and ethnicity is outmoded. Although there is no consensus about what word or words could replace minority, some argue for the use of more specific terms when talking about racial and ethnic groups.

''There are so many better terms than minority,'' said F. Chris Garcia, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who said the term has been out of favor on campus for years. ''Eventually we'll probably change the language tremendously.''

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, May 8, 2001.